Canada issues LGBTQ+ travel advisory for the U.S.

I would expect her to disagree, since nobody would ever admit that things that are supposed to be done solely by impartial bureaucrats in the civil service are politicized. I have no proof of this specific decision being interfered with or influenced either of course, but the Canadian civil service is no less vulnerable to political interference than any other developed nation.

 

You're an official in the Canadian consular service responsible for services to Canadians planning trips and travelling abroad.

Your department publishes advisories about almost every country on earth including the U.S. as a regular part of your work.

Reports reach you that some states are enacting, or moving in their legislatures and seriously considering, laws that for example could criminalize a transgender person on account of using a public restroom in that state in the way they could freely in Canada, or criminalize the parents of a transgender teen on account of their continuing during a trip to that state the hormone treatment recommended and prescribed by their doctor in Canada.

You have three basic options:

1. Issue a strongly-worded special statement.
2. Include a short, simple, diplomatically-worded statement in your already existing and regularly updated travel advisory for that country.
3. Not share this information with Canadians considering traveling to that country.

I think what they did constitutes the second option.

I think it's an excellent choice, the third option would have abdicated a responsibility of the consular service and thereby been wrong, and the first option may well not be the best fit for the consular service.

I wouldn't be surprised if, say, an individual socially liberal Canadian Member of Parliament or two has taken the first option, and I expect most socially conservative MPs by not saying anything have taken the third option.

 

It's not just about right vs. left.

 

There are over 8 Billion people on the planet and more than 300 million in the US. You can probably find people advocating for just about everything. A woman who most people haven't heard of isn't likely to be part of a slippery slope and proof of the book coming true. Those who believe Handmaid's Tale is coming true are worse than those looking around for proof we are in the end times (from the Book of Revelation): that computer chipping people (mark of the beast), and cashless society are part of the anti Christ's plot on humanity, blood moon indicators and so on. They see patterns in the socio and geo political situations that are nearly fulfilling prophecy.

Proof of the common thinking patterns in humanity (left, right, religious, irreligious). For some conspiracy types and people who need meaning, Margaret Atwood is the new John the Revelator.

 

It's precisely BECAUSE the cultural differences between the U.S. and Canada are almost vanishingly small that the Canadian government stresses whatever differences it can find. Believe me, the whole spectrum of opinions about LGBQ+ (or whatever the acronym has evolved into by now) is as present in Canadian politics as it is here. This is virtue signaling and nothing more.

 

I should say between the U.S. and English speaking Canada.

 

It does? Really? Who in Canadian politics is as transphobic as what is becoming mainstream in GOP?

If some state tries to define gender affirming care as child abuse, travelers deserve to know it.

 

But what Canadian traveler would be affected by such a ban?

 

"Gender Affirming Care"? It is nonsense to be giving under age kids drugs with permanent effects to try and change genders and mess with their biological systems when their prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed. There have been some sad detransitioning stories (even after detransitioning they can never be what they once were and have permanent psychological impact). Caution and concern is warranted from a Psychological, Medical, and ethical view. It is nuts. Adults can obviously do what they want.

 

A transgender person whose choice to use the restroom consistent with their common-sense public appearance but not with a medical record from their birth is now deemed by the U.S. state to be public indecency.

A clothed drag performer whose performance is now deemed by the U.S. state to be public indecency.

A family of parents and a transgender teen who continue while travelling the hormone therapy prescribed in Canada, now deemed by the U.S. state to be child abuse.

 

There is a difference between "we are in end-times and the anti-Christ is coming back" and "there is backsliding in democracy that correlates with religious fundamentalists gaining political power and rolling back civil rights."

One of those things is easily measurable and absolutely happening.

 

Not your call.

 

Hormone and hormone-related treatments are prescribed to young people routinely for many reasons. The "permanent" effects of such treatment within mainstream standards of care are believed to be slight, I think.

We do agree caution and concern is warranted.

Well that's not very cautious.

We agree, and it's heartening to see this common ground.

 

By the way, Margaret Atwood's thinking is more complicated and nuanced than it's often given credit for. Atwood described herself as a Red Tory in the 19th-century tradition.

 

Nonsense. Look at the whole host of societal concerns and care. It is entirely appropriate to be concerned. You have just given in to group think and not independent fact based analysis.

 

Oh, you "did your own research", didn't you? It's allright then. Not that supporters of every single Internet crankery use the very same line.

What I get from your posts is that Canadian travelers have nothing to worry about - unless they are doing something you disagree with. Which is VERY different from truly having nothing to worry about. Travel advisory is correct.

 

Lol!

Um like people who believe in free speech need to watch out in Canada.

 

Issue your own travel advisory then.

Let me try to clarify: Can a Canadian family with a teenager taking doctor-prescribed puberty blockers safely travel, to all 50 states, now and in the foreseeable future, and not face any issues with the state and local laws? Or alternatively, travelers can be safe, but only unless they engage in (your word) "madness" and (again, your word) "nonsense"? In this case, are you sure it is Canada (a country of many flaws, btw) that doesn't believe in "free speech" and, in general, freedom?

 

I've recently encountered a piece written by a meanie scientist and I am absolutely appalled and shocked at these fighting words:

"The fashion for females to “identify as” male and for males to “identify as” female has emplaced an assertive new convention. Your genes and chromosomes may determine your sex, but your gender is whatever floats your boat: “I was assigned male at birth, but I identify as a woman.” Finally, the wheel turns full circle, and self-identification has now gone so far as to usurp even “sex”. A “woman” is defined as anyone who chooses to call herself a woman, and never mind if she has a penis and a hairy chest. And of course this entitles her to enter women’s changing rooms and athletic competitions. Why should she not? She is, after all, a woman, is she not? Deny it and you are a transphobic bigot."

"High priests of postmodernism teach that lived experience and feelings trump science (which is just the mythology of a tribe of oppressive colonialists). Catholic (but not Protestant) theologians declare that consecrated wine actually becomes the blood of Christ. The dilute alcohol solution that remains in the chalice is but an Aristotelian “accidental”. The “whole substance” (hence the word “transubstantiation”) is divine blood in true reality. In the new religion of transsexual transubstantiation, a “woman’s penis” is just an “accidental”, a mere social construct. In “whole substance” she is a woman. A trans-substantiated woman."

"You have a right to your private lexicon, but you are not entitled to insist that we change our language to suit your whim. And you absolutely have no right to bully and intimidate those who follow common usage and biological reality in their usage of “woman” as honoured descriptor for half the population. A woman is an adult human female, free of Y chromosomes."

- Richard Dawkins, a so-called evolutionary biologist

* Trigger warning link: https://archive.ph/FilBk